


moon on the sea

by thekardemomme



Series: Spierfeld Week [1]
Category: Love Simon (2018), Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda - Becky Albertalli
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beach, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Crush at First Sight, First Kiss, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Summer Vacation, gay shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 13:56:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14262474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekardemomme/pseuds/thekardemomme
Summary: When Simon rented out an airbnb in South Carolina the week after graduation, he didn’t expect to have a roommate. And more than that, he didn’t expect his roommate to be the cutest boy he’s ever seen in his life.





	moon on the sea

“Are you sure you’ll be okay on your own?” Emily asks, running her hands down Simon’s arms again like she’s checking for injuries.

Simon rolls his eyes. “Yes, mom. And I won’t be on my own, Nick and Abby are going with me.”

Emily frowns. “What about Leah?”

“Her parents won’t let her go,” Simon shrugs, lifting his duffel bag and shoving it in the trunk. He was going to pick up Nick and Abby as soon as his mom lets him leave—which, at this rate, will be never. “But the three of us will be fine. We have a small house on the beach and we’re only staying for the week. Besides, the Isle of Palms isn’t that far. It’s, like, 5 hours.”

“5 hours too far.”

He makes his way to the front of the car, hoping that will indicate to his mom that he needs to get going. Check in for their airbnb is at 3:30pm and it was slowly inching too close to 9:30am for comfort. He wanted to be there on time, so they could spend as much time at the beach as possible.

“Drive safe. No drinking, no drugs, no parties. And please, you and Nick share a bedroom. I know he and Abby are dating and that’s exactly why—”

“Goodbye mom,” he interrupts, kissing her cheek and then climbing into the car. “I’ll see you Sunday night, okay?”

Emily nods eventually, offering him a small smile. Simon takes it as a win. He closes his door and watches in his rear view as his mom waves at him until he’s out of sight. It feels a lot like freedom, complete and total freedom, and Simon’s not quite sure how to handle that just yet. He’s never been this liberated before.

Nick and Abby are standing at the end of Nick’s driveway when Simon pulls up. They waste no time tossing their bags in the back and clambering into the car, Abby in the passenger seat and Nick in the back. Abby plugs the aux cord into her phone and immediately starts playing the RapCaviar playlist on Spotify. Simon doesn’t really know any of the songs, but he doesn’t mind.

Somewhere past the South Carolina border, probably still in Augusta, they stop to get gas and load up on snacks. Nick takes the passenger seat after that, and he plays more Drake than anything else. He and Abby fight over his music choice for the rest of the stretch to the Isle of Palms.

Abby makes him stop at the Ravenel Bridge to take pictures. They take way too many photos, stop at a fast food place to get too many orders of fries, and play the music way too loud as they finally reach the Isle of Palms. Even if it is Drake.

“And here we are,” Simon grins as they pull up to the airbnb house. It’s a small one story cottage, but they can hear the beach. Hell, they can _see_ the beach through the barrier of palm trees surrounding the house. It’s like entering their own paradise from the moment they step out of the car.

“This is amazing!” Abby cheers, leaping out of the car and soaking in the warm sun and the faint feeling of salt in the air. “We have this place to ourselves for a whole week, boys. How will we ever get the strength to go home?”

Simon shrugs, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

“Hey,” Nick says, pointing over Simon’s shoulder, “whose car is that? Is the landlord supposed to be here to check us in?”

“Uh, no, I don’t think so,” Simon says, glancing at the car parked under a cluster of palms in the corner. It’s ancient, with a hula girl stuck on the dashboard and a high school graduation tassel hanging from the rearview mirror. All three of them share some glances before walking up to the house. Maybe the landlord just wanted to meet the people who were staying in her house for a week. It wouldn’t be unreasonable.

The door is unlocked when they walk in. The house is pristine, untouched—like it’s just waiting for some life to be poured into it. Simon and his friends are more than willing, and likely, to deliver.

The kitchen isn’t insanely modern, but it’s cozy. The living room is big enough to accommodate them, with a pullout couch and a TV, and a huge sliding glass door with a view straight out to the beach. The first bedroom is on the left, while the master and the bathroom are on the right. Abby and Nick claim the master, so Simon drifts off to the left.

When he opens the door, he finds a bag sitting on the bed. “What the hell?” He mumbles to himself, setting his bag down on the floor and turning to go tell Abby and Nick. It’s just as he steps out of the bedroom that the sliding glass door slides open to reveal a man who will undoubtedly star in all of Simon’s daydreams (and the like) from now on.

He’s clearly fresh from the beach, golden brown skin dripping with salt water droplets that look like diamonds when they catch the light. He has insane abs and defined calves, and the softest eyes Simon’s ever seen. The veins in his arms are pronounced, and his hands look calloused, and Simon doesn’t even venture to wonder what the trail of dark hair above his swim shorts leads to.

The boy is staring right back at him, but he looks less enamored and more confused. “Uh, hi?” The boy says, and Simon’s knees nearly buckle at the sound of his voice. “Um… What the fuck?”

“Um. Hi. I’m Simon,” he stutters, color rising in his cheeks as the boy just stares. “Me and my friends rented this place for the week on airbnb. Are you the landlord?”

The boy shakes his head. “No? _I_ rented this place for the week on airbnb. You must have the wrong place.”

“Simon?”

Both boys turn to look at Abby, who’d just emerged from the bedroom with Nick. They both look just as confused to see the boy there as Simon is.

“Why are you here?” Nick asks, then turns to Simon. “Why the hell is Bram here?”

“You know him?” Abby and Simon ask, in unison.

“I play soccer with Nick,” The boy, Bram, interrupts. “I’m Bram. I rented this house for a week off of airbnb, but Simon says that he rented it this week, too. Airbnb must’ve made a mistake or something. Or maybe the landlord did. It’s a funny coincidence, isn’t it?”

All four of them fall silent, eyes darting between each other. None of them really know what to do or how to handle this. Abby, Nick, and Simon drove too far and spent too much money to just cut losses and go home. And Bram was here first. Besides, it’s not their fault. None of them should have to leave.

But there’s only 2 bedrooms, and there’s no way Simon could fit in a bed with Nick and Abby.

“Looks like you’ll be sleeping on the pull out, Spier!” Nick finally says, and Simon just rolls his eyes.

“No,” Bram objects, “I’ll sleep on the pull out. It’s really not a big deal.”

“It’s not a big deal for me, either,” Simon argues.

“Dude, let me take the pull out. It’s fine.”

Nick and Abby start heading for the door, clearly intent on checking out the beach and making out in the sand. “You two have fun sorting this out. Me and Nick are going to go exploring,” Abby says, quickly ducking out and leaving Simon to deal with the Adonis on his own.

Bram shifts awkwardly on his feet. They’re still bare, and slightly sand covered. And super, super close to those fucking calves. “Seriously, I can take the pull out. It’s only for a few nights.” He pulls the couch cushions off of the couch and then lifts the mattress out of the couch.

It’s squeaky and dusty, with a hole right in the middle as if something had chewed through it. Simon glances up at Bram with raised eyebrows.

“We can share the bed,” Simon offers, and Bram immediately tenses all over. Fear strikes through Simon’s heart. He starts wondering if Bram is homophobic, and that’s why he’s tense at the thought of sharing a bed. But then Simon remembers that there’s no possible way he could know, and his heart (which is still pounding) slows minutely. “If-If that’s not a problem. It’s a decently big bed. And, I mean, like you said—it’s only for a few nights.”

Bram nods slowly. “Yeah, I don’t see why not. That should be fine.” He puts the pull out back up. Simon drifts towards the window, looking out at where Nick and Abby are hitting a volleyball back and forth. “It’s really nice out there. Not that much wind, just a breeze. The water’s warm.”

“Want to team up with me and go kick their asses in volleyball?” Simon offers.

“Sure,” Bram agrees, laughing. His laugh sounds like Simon’s favorite Elliott Smith song, or, at least, it makes him feel the same things.

The sand is warm between Simon’s toes. Not in the stinging, burning way that hot pavement is, but more so like a fireplace-warmed blanket. Or the kind of warm that fills your body when the person you like smiles at you for a moment too long. The sun is equally as warm when it hits Simon’s bare back as he shrugs his shirt off. He can’t help but feel a little self conscious standing next to Bram, so he focuses on the ocean in front of him.

There’s hardly any waves. It’s calm, and the sound of seagulls overpowers the sound of the water. A tidepool is gathered a few feet farther down the shore from where Abby and Nick are setting the volleyball back and forth, and Simon just knows that the water is warmer there. He’s tempted to dip his feet in it.

He’s also tempted to lick the last bit of salt water off of Bram’s torso. He doesn’t do either.

“Mind if we join?” Simon asks, and Nick smiles, pointing to the line in the sand that counts as a net. He runs over to Abby’s side of the line and Bram joins Simon. “If the ball hits the ground on your side, it’s a point for the other team. First to ten wins. Got it?”

The game lasts for hours. They play to ten, then twenty, then twenty five, then thirty. Simon and Bram lose, mostly due to the fact that Simon paid more attention to Bram’s flexing muscles and insanely hot athletic abilities than actually playing the game. He knows Nick will tease him for it later, but right now he doesn’t care. Bram is fucking gorgeous, and Simon wants to drink it up like the cool lemonade on a summer day that it is.

When the sun starts to dip below the horizon of brightly colored beach cottages, the group goes for a swim. Bram’s already in a swimsuit but the others just strip to their underwear. Bram seems kind of shocked when Abby shamelessly pulls off her sundress, and Simon has to fight his laughter.

“I’m gay and Nick’s her boyfriend,” Simon explains.

“Bram’s gay, too,” Nick interrupts, and Simon’s skin sets on fire. He writes it off as being the beginning of a sunburn, even though the sun is gone now. He runs into the water to cool it off.

They head inside when it gets too dark to see. They each take a shower and then gather in the living room, sun-drunk and happy. Abby pours them each a glass of wine and they just talk. Bram fits seamlessly into the group, as if he’s been part of it all along.

“Truth or dare, Simon?” Abby asks at one point, swirling her glass of wine.

Simon rolls his eyes. “This is so middle school,” he complains. But Abby, Nick, and Bram just egg her on, so he gives. “Fine, fine. Truth.”

“What’s one thing you’ve done that you’ve never told us about?”

For a moment, Simon combs through every memory he has. The biggest secret he ever kept from his friends was his sexuality. With that came the smaller lies, like girls he’d lied about kissing or the sex he’d lied about having. But those were things he _hadn’t_ done. Things he has done he’s never really kept from his friends.

After a while of thinking, he decides on one. “When you took me to that gay bar after the play junior year—remember?—I tried to kiss that guy that bought me a drink. Remember that college guy? Yeah.”

Nick reaches across the coffee table for a fist bump, to which Simon begrudgingly obliges. It’s nothing to fist bump over, really. He got drunk and tried to kiss a guy significantly older than him, and got rejected. But he’ll take it. He’s just happy that Abby didn’t ask about his first kiss, because he hasn’t had his yet.

Well, he has. Technically. He’s kissed his girlfriends. But he doesn’t really count those as being his first kisses. His first kiss will be with the first boy he kisses, because that’s what really matters to him. Not the random girls he dated just because they were into him so it was easy to pretend that he liked them back. All of that was just one huge cover up, and he doesn’t want his monumental First Kiss to be remembered as something he didn’t even really want.

“My turn, right,” Simon sighs, turning to face Bram. Bram, who’s already looking at him. Simon’s breath catches for a moment before he remembers where he is and who’s watching him. “Bram, truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“If you could have any superpower,” Simon asks, “what would it be, and why?”

Bram mulls it over for a second, and Simon decides he finds it really attractive when Bram thinks. Because Bram thinks _a lot._ It had only taken the few hours they’d known each other for him to realize that. And he gets this look on his face when he thinks—this faraway look in his eyes, a small upturn on the right corner of his mouth. It’s the cutest thing in the world, and Simon is way too into him for only knowing this guy for a few hours.

When Bram speaks next, Simon almost misses it. “Probably speed,” he says, and Simon waits for the detailed explanation he knows is coming. “For one, I could travel anywhere. If I could run so fast that I could run over water, then I could run to other continents without the hassle of airplane travel. And it would probably be faster that way, too. I would never be late to anything ever again. And I’d probably be in really good shape.”

Simon knows the last sentence is a joke, but he still says, “You’re already in good shape, though. Have you seen your calves recently?” Thankfully for him and his dignity, he doesn’t add the _I’ve been staring at them all afternoon_ that he definitely thinks.

Bram blushes. “Thanks.” They hold eye contact for a moment longer than necessary, and then Bram shakes himself out of it, turning to Abby. “Uh, Abby, truth or dare?”

Truth or Dare goes on until Abby is quite literally falling asleep sitting up. Nick whisks her off to bed and leaves Simon and Bram alone in the living room. There’s no awkwardness between them, only curiosity and the faintest electric tension. Simon has to wonder if he’s the only one who feels that, though.

“When did you know you were gay?” Bram asks, cutting through the thick silence they’d been left in.

Simon shrugs. “I kind of always knew. But I didn’t figure it out until I was thirteen. I had this really weird Daniel Radcliffe phase. I kept having this recurring dream about him, and it didn’t take me long to figure out what the hell was going on with that.” He and Bram both laugh, quiet and reserved. “What about you?”

“Like you, I think I always knew. The hardest thing for me wasn’t accepting that I was gay, it was trying to come out to other people that was worse. My mom handled it really well, but I was pretty scared to come out to my dad. He’s pretty religious, so… And the first night that I tried to come out to him, he gave me a book by Casanova.”

“Are you serious? He gave you a book by freaking Casanova?”

“Yep,” Bram laughs, resting his head against his hand. He looks so adorably sleepy, and Simon can imagine a day when it would be okay to kiss a sleepy Bram and then make him go cuddle in bed until they both fell asleep. “As it turns out, though, Casanova was bisexual.”

“The more you know.”

“Indeed.” Bram studies him for a moment. “How did your parents react?”

For a second, Simon averts his eyes. He doesn’t like thinking about that Christmas morning. The thought of his dad’s retreating back and his mom’s psychoanalyzing. “I came out on Christmas morning. My mom was supportive, I always knew she would be. But my dad used to make a lot of gay jokes, so I guess I was scared. I tried to pretend I wasn’t scared, for a long time. But I was. Announcing who you are to the world is insanely scary, as it turns out.” He nervously glances up at Bram, finding nothing but pure empathy in his eyes. Simon reminds himself that Bram knows how this feels, and it’s like taking a breath of fresh air.

“Anyway,” Simon continues, “my mom said she knew that I was hiding something. That it was like I was holding my breath for the previous 17 years. She kept telling me that I was still _me_ , you know, and that I could be the most authentic version of myself now and that made her happy. My dad… My dad didn’t handle it so well. But he’s supportive, so I try not to think about that. It’s water under the bridge.”

“I’m sorry your coming out didn’t go how you wanted it to,” Bram murmurs. Sleep is edging itself into his voice now. “I wish I could time travel back to 17 year old Simon and tell him that everything is going to be okay.”

Simon grins, “If you get your running powers, you can try to run so fast that you travel back in time. I’ve seen that happen in movies.”

“I’m not The Flash, Simon. I wish I was.” A quick glance at the clock. “Maybe we should go get in bed, too. Abby sounded like she had some pretty big breakfast plans.”

Simon agrees. They leave their wine glasses there and slowly make their way into the bedroom. They almost tiptoe around each other as they get ready for bed, like they’re apprehensive. Perhaps they are. Sharing a bed with Cute Bram wouldn’t be an easy feat, and the fear of waking up with morning wood is certainly real. But Simon pushes that fear aside, because it’s not everyday you get to sleep next to a cute boy.

There’s no awkward dancing around each other when they both climb into bed. Their skin is still warmed from the day at the beach and they both still smell of saltwater, Simon notices. They lay on their sides, facing each other. Simon traces the lines of Bram’s jaw with his eyes.

“Truth or dare?” Bram whispers. There’s no need to whisper.

“Truth.”

“Who’s your favorite artist?”

Simon smiles slightly. “Elliott Smith. I know, super gay, right?”

“Not as gay as my playlist of showtunes.”

“Fair enough.” A quick moment of silence. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“Have you seen me at school before?”

“Yes.” Bram is still whispering. “I had a tiny crush on you, but I didn’t know your name. I knew Nick from soccer but he and I never really became friends outside of the team.”

“Oh.” Simon grins, and confidence runs through his veins. “Truth or dare?”

“It’s my turn.”

“I know,” Simon whispers, “but just pick dare.” Bram does. “I dare you to kiss me.”

And Bram does. He tastes like the tidepool that Simon had been ogling earlier, and it’s like he finally got the chance to take a dip in it. He tastes like summer vacation and ice cold lemonade and sunscreen and a tiny blue swimsuit. Simon cups his cheeks, slides closer to him. They can hear seagulls and some small waves crashing outside, and they kiss more.

Simon doesn’t remember falling asleep, but the next thing he knows, he’s waking up. He’s tangled up in Bram, the ghost of his kiss still on his lips. He’s not really sure where they’re going to go from here. After all, things escalated quickly from meeting to kissing a few hours later. They have to get to know each other before either of them can decide if this means something. But, hey, they have a cottage in South Carolina for the week. What circumstances could possibly be better to get to know someone?

And this way, he’ll finally have a First Kiss story to tell Leah.

So, yeah, Simon’s not sure where they’ll go from here. He figures they can start with breakfast.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope this is okay rip rip  
> find me on tumblr @ femmevilde


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